Experienced any incompetence lately? I feel kind of incompetent about writing a column on competence. I’ve done plenty of incompetent things in my life.
At one time in my life I tried to ski down a mountain in the southern Andes without previously having been on skis. You guessed right, I first started falling down the mountain and then I walked the rest of the way. That’s a good example of incompetence—maybe even stupidity.
I showed a lot of incompetence when I was hired to teach English as a second language (ESL) to a group of Hispanic children. I had no training in teaching ELS. My teaching became a guessing game as to what to do. My only salvation was that nobody else knew what to do either.
Incompetence is the lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications to do what is supposed to be done. The Detroit Lions who never won a football game this year fit that definition pretty well. Then, of course, there is always Congress and Wall Street who participated in our current monetary fiasco. Getting us into the Iraq war was not a competent decision. We will need to show the epitome of competence to get us out.
Our schools take the blame for perpetuating incompetence. What people forget is that our students’ role models are you and me. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.” Take a look around, it’s true.
My bank told me that if I transferred some of my savings account into a certificate of deposit I would make more money. When I asked the teller how much additional money I would make at the new rate, her response was, “I’m not too good with numbers.”
A person ordered a small pizza to go. The cook asked him if he would like it cut into 4 pieces or 6. He thought about it for some time before responding. “Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don't think I'm hungry enough to eat 6 pieces.”
A woman’s luggage never showed up in the airport baggage area, so she went to the lost luggage office and told the worker that her bags never arrived. The worker smiled and told her not to worry because he (the worker) was a trained professional and the woman was in good hands. “Now,” the worker asked her, “has your plane arrived yet?”
The problem with incompetent people is that they don’t take time to think. Olympic star Michael Phelps is the most competent person in the world when it comes to swimming. However, when it comes to thinking, he is not too swift. He was recently asked, “What were you thinking?” in reference to his smoking marijuana at a party. He responded, “Obviously, not much.”
I wonder what Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and his heroic flight crew would say if we asked them to talk to us about what it is to be competent.
They might say, “Well, you have to take pride in what you do even if you don’t like what you do.” That’s a huge problem today. Lot’s a people don’t like what they do and because they don’t like what they do, they don’t care how they do it.
I had a great uncle that was absolutely meticulous in everything he did. He took pride in the way he dressed, his garden, and his handwriting. I have this theory that if we taught people to care about how their handwriting looked, they would care more about a lot of other things.
Sully’s crew who landed the jet in the Hudson River might say, “Be your own oversight committee of one.” If someone were to inspect your work, what would they say? What would you say? Could you do it better? Sully and his crew received an “A plus” for their super competent work that saved everyone on board US Airways Flight 1549.
Sully’s crew might say, “Don’t do anything that causes people to think less of you.” Warren Buffett would agree. He said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez, alias A-Rod, knows all about how fast your reputation can slide. Because he first said he didn’t use steroids and then he said he did use them, his name is forever tainted. Forever is a long time.
One thing about being competent, there is no wait. You don’t have to wait a long time. You can start today, this hour, this minute, now.
Who Is John?